Governmental restrictions specify that before industrial waste water can be discharged into environmental streams, the biological oxygen demand (BOD) of the effluent must be satisfactorily lowered. This is typically accomplished by aerating the waste water so that the oxygen-ingesting bacteria contained therein meet their oxygen demands while in the aeration tank instead of in the environmental streams.
I have found that passing the waste water through an electrolytic treater prior to introducing it into the aeration tank has a very beneficial effect on purification of the water, including encouraging particles within the waste water to flocculate and thus more readily settle out as sludge. As a by-product of such electrolysis, oxygen has heretofore been released to the atmosphere without taking advantage of the fact that such oxygen could be utilized in the aeration tank as the means of stimulating aerobic action.